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A group of World of Warcraft players planning their next attack online may look like pure fun and games, from the chat-room banter to the orcs and elves they send into battle. But to UCI researcher Walt Scacchi, a senior research scientist at UCI’s Institute of Software Research, it just might look like a business meeting. “They may spend hours strategizing in chat rooms or looking at recordings of previous game-play sessions,” Scacchi said. “They’re helping to educate themselves on how to be a better team, more effective.

The Orange Coast College Foundation will begin the process of putting Rabbit Island up for sale, but will give students and faculty a chance to seek alternate methods of funding for the British Columbian property. At the foundation's board meeting Thursday, several members described the island as a drain on OCC's financial resources and said they were keen on regaining the money they had invested in it. A core group of students and faculty, however, have asked the foundation to hold on to Rabbit Island, calling it a valuable academic resource.

Removing Marinapark homes is a worthy sacrifice I am angered by the fact that some of the people who are writing negative letters to the editor about the proposed Marinapark resort are current Marinapark Trailer Park tenants. These people have had the privilege of keeping their trailers on this waterfront, city-owned land at greatly discounted rents for decades. Across the bay at the Lido Peninsula Resort, those tenants are paying and they have to look across a parking lot and large boat docks before they even see water.

Marisa O'Neil While most people watch the evening news to see if they'll need their umbrella the next day, researchers on campus are predicting the weather 300 years from now. A new $1-million supercomputer in UC Irvine's department of earth system science creates models to simulate global climate conditions hundreds of years from now. Unlike the local weather forecast, it gives a worldwide, long-term overview....

Orange Coast College Foundation members voted unanimously Thursday evening to wait 60 days before deciding whether to sell Rabbit Island, giving students, faculty and community leaders a chance to seek other ways to pay for the island's upkeep. At the meeting in the new Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion on the OCC campus, a number of people who had taught or taken classes on Rabbit Island defended the British Columbian property as a valuable resource. Several foundation members said that operating the island has become too great a financial drain.

11 UCI students win top scholarships Eleven undergraduates and one junior researcher have won prestigious academic scholarships over the last year, with some planning to study at home and others venturing abroad. Three students won the U.S. Fulbright Fellowship, which sponsors graduate study overseas. Marika Csapo and Hugo Salazar both plan to study in South America ? Csapo in Uruguay, Salazar in Colombia ? while Vanessa Zuabi aims to research world politics in France. Mukul Kumar won the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, which prepares students for careers in leadership.

COSTA MESA Transportation Authority pulls light rail line The Orange County Transportation Authority pulled the CenterLine light-rail line off line last week. Officials have been studying plans for a light-rail system since 1991 and have spent $63 million on the project. Originally planned to be more than 20-miles long, it ended as a 9.3-mile route from Santa Ana through Costa Mesa to John Wayne Airport. The transportation agency will study converting the light-rail project to another rapid-transit system, but board members made sure to include options besides a bus-based system.

City seeks name for future park The city of Newport Beach wants people to don their thinking caps and come up with a name for a new 12-acre park behind the central library on Avocado Avenue. When it's built, the park will include an amphitheater, seating area and native plants. The city will pay for the park design, and volunteers are working to raise the estimated $1.2 million needed for construction. The city will accept park name suggestions through April 15, and the names will be considered at a May 3 meeting of the parks, beaches and recreation commission.

Jenny Marder The nation's depleted drinking water supply has led researchers on a quest to find new resources, and Newport-Mesa's main water supplier, the Orange County Water District, will serve as the test subject. The district was selected by the National Science Foundation to serve as the testing site for a nationwide research program aimed at developing new water treatment technology. The water utility will use a $99,000 grant, guaranteed by the foundation for the next five years, to analyze equipment designed to purify water.

Christine Carrillo Helping young minds find a path that will lead them to the world of engineering, professor Martha Mecartney's mentoring efforts have gained her presidential acclaim. The White House announced Friday that President Bush selected Mecartney, along with nine other people and six institutions, to receive a 2002 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics, Science and Engineering Mentoring. Because of her involvement in a number of mentoring programs, some of which give underrepresented students a chance to pursue graduate studies and faculty positions, Mecartney's name reached the steps of the White House.